Clickit! has been running as a photographic project since 2000 and was launched to mark the turn of the millenium. This project realised an on-line gallery of over 7,500 images and a popular touring exhibition all related to same 150 square miles of land known as Charnwood in the East Midlands of England. From this first Clickit! more projects, competitions and exhibitions grew and eventually the Pixel and Grain Gallery was born!

Pixel and Grain now runs international photography competitions on an annual basis and the Clickit! Open is one of the three over the last year. The list of countries from which we receive entries is impressive and it is truly a world-wide photographic arts event.

'Clickit!'

Clickit! Photo-Competition 2010: "PHOTO-ESSAY" - The results!

There are still very few competitive photographic challenges, promoted on a world wide basis, that demand the ability to produce a photographic essay as their key task. It all becomes a wider and more artistically challenging brief if we move beyond the purely documentary to include more aesthetic and thematic essays. As our judges discovered it was equally challenging for them to compare these works. Of all the ClickIt! competitions this was the hardest to judge and the competition which elicited the highest quality of work.

This was not just a matter of producing six strong and winning images – telling or suggesting a story with one image is sometimes easier. For the six image essay the photographer’s artistry also must consider the way in which these images work together. What is it that links them? The visual elements, accompanying or included text, an aesthetic quality, a linkage of feelings, a visual narrative?

This is an exhibition to spend time with, to savour, to think about and to stimulate the imagination to enter the world as another has seen it and made connections through it.